babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.

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Many a small business owner are reaping what they sewed by their throwing their lot in with the BC Libs over the last 3 elections. Everything that has happened in the last year and coming about this year has solidified into the assured destruction of small and medium businesses. Also with the help of the Conservatives. Now that I think about it more.

* hydro rates going up 3+% along with the new billions of dollars smart meters allowing BC Hydro to charge them triple during their peak periods of consumption. Also hitting the working poor and fixed income peoples hard too.

* vehicle insurance rates going up

* building and property taxes going up significantly across the province today

* higher minimum wage now impacted larger on them for payroll costs because of the new added federally increased EI and CPP rates. Workers get it, the slap down, too of course. The badly needed minimum wage increase is all gone now.

Christy should have stayed at CKNW as she is going to take the fall for all of it.

Would the Chamber of Commerce people really flow to Cummins after all that the right of the BC Liberals have done?

Regarding the statement: "If I was criticizing myself, I'd say: Make less decisions but make the more significant decisions and make sure the execution is followed up better. I think that would make for better government."

Dix echoed that in his speech at the convention. He mentioned how Barrett's government passed bills at a rapid breakneck speed, but ultimately the implementation is up to the public service, and the overwhelming amount of change in a short time made it difficult to implement them all well.

B.C. New Democrats are leading in the polls. The ruling B.C. Liberals are in trouble. Resurgent B.C. Conservatives are splitting the centre-right vote. If all this holds until next year’s general election, the NDP coasts to victory.

It’s a neat narrative that may work out that way. But if history repeats itself in May 2013, there could be a huge wrinkle. Think 1941.

Political scientist Dennis Pilon revisited B.C.’s electoral past when he contributed a chapter to a pan-Canadian academic book expected to be out sometime in the fall. In it, the former University of Victoria faculty member demonstrates how politics in the province has been largely defined by how the right has formed coalitions to keep the left out of power.

“In 1941, the Liberals and Conservatives joined together into a coalition government, and they ruled the province in a coalition from 1941 to 1952,” Pilon recalled in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight from Toronto’s York University, where he is now an associate professor.

Unless Adrian Dix’s New Democrats win a majority of the 85 seats in the legislative assembly, 1941 could happen again.

If Premier Christy Clark’s B.C. Liberals and John Cummins’s Conservatives have enough seats to form a majority, “no question, they’ll govern,” Pilon said.

In the 1941 election, the left-leaning Co-operative Commonwealth Federation won the popular vote with a 33-percent share. However, neither that precursor of the NDP nor the B.C. Liberals and B.C. Conservatives at that time won a majority of the 48 seats up for grabs.

“The various ruling elites said, ‘Holy Toledo, what’s going on here?’ ” Pilon said. “And they very quickly put together a coalition. They ran as a coalition in 1945 and 1949 and easily won both elections.”

Cummins’s Conservatives acknowledge 1941, devoting an entire subsection to it in the party’s history posted on its website. According to this material, the Conservatives got three cabinet posts to the Liberals’ five in their shared government.

Pilon explained that coalitions like these took the form of either alliances between parties, like the one that took shape in 1941, or, mostly, single parties like Social Credit and the modern-day B.C. Liberal Party. According to him, these coalitions won 17 of the 20 elections fought between 1941 and 2009.

Poll results released in December by Forum Research Inc. show that the B.C. Conservatives are tied at 23 percent with the B.C. Liberals. Both centre-right parties trail the NDP, which is at 34 percent.

B.C. Liberal woes may go from bad to worse in the two by-elections expected this year.

The NDP recruited a popular politician, Joe Trasolini, former mayor of Port Moody, to represent the party in the by-election for the Port Moody–Coquitlam seat vacated by B.C. Liberal MLA Iain Black.

In another by-election, John Martin, a well-known Fraser Valley newspaper columnist and criminologist, will run for the B.C. Conservatives in Chilliwack-Hope.

John Dyck, an assistant professor of political studies at Trinity Western University, noted that a deeply divided right serves the NDP well, as the party didn’t gain much above 40 percent of the vote in B.C. the three times it won and formed a government, in 1972, 1991, and 1996.

During these years, the NDP had its biggest share of the vote, almost 41 percent, when Mike Harcourt led the party in the 1991 election, winning 51 of the 75 legislative seats in contention. In that contest, the B.C. Liberals earned 33 percent of the vote, and Social Credit 24 percent.

“As much as the Liberals and Conservatives right now are fighting for the same base, the NDP only makes an inroad into that base if, in fact, the other two parties don’t do well,” Dyck told the Straight in a phone interview. “They [NDP] have to have a split opposition in order for them to do well.”

The Trinity academic sees the same result Pilon does if next year’s election leads to a minority outcome. “It certainly would be much easier for the Liberals and the Conservatives to cooperate,” Dyck said. “It would be more likely that you could have Liberal minority government supported by Conservatives.”

It is interesting to contemplate what would happen if the NDP comes first with only a plurality of seats followed by Con/Lib or Lib/Con. It's not an impossible situation, if the pieces fall in just the right places. Would Dix still get the first right to try and form government? And if so, what could he possibly do to maintain the confidence of the house?

Isn't it funny, how the BC political pundits call it right - splitting the right wing vote between Cons and Libs. Right on because we all know right across Canada that Libs are just so not progressive.

Well, it's undeniable that there is a contingent of voters who define themselves as "progressive" or "relatively progressive" and vote Liberal. Even BC Liberal. I've met them and so have you, and some of them even get elected to office. And they usually have some particular reason why they aren't really into the NDP, and they manage to justify the actions of the right flank of the party as pragmatic.

But that little bloc is very critical to the survival of the BC Liberal party. If they break that delicate balance and reach too far right, that bloc could bolt. Maybe not all to the NDP mind you. Perhaps the same way that in 2001 many NDP voters went Green as a protest vote... perhaps we might see that BC Liberal voters who are not excited by the BCLs or the BCCs might be the ones to go Green as a protest vote.

Christy Clark did express on P&P one concern with the health formula, namely that it funds per-capita, but seniors cost far more in annual health expenses than younger people. And BC, as a major retirement province, is in fact seeing that its fastest-growing population is the over-85 set. So she would advocate for an age-adjusted formula. Which is probably the only reasonable thing I heard her say in the interview.

Regarding the BCCons... it looks like Dix will start to have to push back himself against both parties. The NDP can't count on the Conservative vote only splitting the right.

A friend of mine made an interesting observation about Kevin Falcon breaking ranks to speak out in favour of Northern Gateway. Falcon's riding is in Surrey. The next federal redistribution is widely expected to add a new riding to Surrey. Perhaps Falcon is rehearsing for a run at the Conservative nomination in a new no-incumbent riding for 2015.

Still I think it would be a sad irony for Dix if he wins a majority with less votes than the NDP got under Carole James. That would indicate she was just as good at pulling votes and her successor merely had the gift of good timing.

Yes, but it's provincial land - right? Thed feds can't run roughshod on a province against its will.
ETA: I wonder if the Cons are trying to speed up the Northern Gateway review process before Dix becomes PM?

“The pipeline would carry over 500,000 barrels of raw tar sands crude each day. The pipeline goes over mountains, across farmland, over the Fraser and Skeena rivers, and straight through the Great Bear Rainforest to the Pacific where it will be picked up by supertankers trying to navigate our inland coastal waters,” said New Democrat environment critic Rob Fleming.

“The opportunities for disaster are many, and the B.C. Liberals should re-assure British Columbians that it will not go through.”

...

Fleming said there have been many disasters in the oil industry recently, and this report clearly spells out how the tar sands pipeline project is high risk.

“British Columbians don’t want to see rivers and lakes killed, fisheries destroyed or towns and farmland contaminated,” said Fleming. “While Alberta oil companies have a lot to gain, the small benefits to British Columbia are far outweighed by the enormous risk to our northern industries, fisheries, communities and ecology.”

Fleming said the report highlights an incident in Michigan last year where another Enbridge tar sands pipeline ruptured, dumping three million litres of crude into the Kalamazoo River. The area and surrounding wetlands are expected to be contaminated for many years.

“There is a reason why First Nations oppose the pipeline and associated tanker traffic. There’s a reason why the Union of B.C. Municipalities voted against it. There’s a reason why British Columbians are against it,” said Fleming.

Fleming said that the report also underlines the need for a commitment from the B.C. Liberals to put pressure on the federal government to create a meaningful national plan on climate change.

“Certainly, in British Columbia, we recognize the big contribution that the oil sands make to Canada and to our national economy,” said Clark.

“And in British Columbia, we’re watching the national environmental review process as it works its way through. So, we’re watching to see. And I think that we’ll be in a position in British Columbia to have a real fulsome, meaningful debate about it once we have all the facts on the table about the impacts for British Columbia and the benefits for British Columbia and for Canada as well. And so we’re watching this environmental review process very closely. Because that’s what’s going to get the facts out on the table for us.”

That wait-and-see approach is robbing British Columbia of its voice in the process because that voice will be heard too late, according to Horgan.

“British Columbians have to make their arguments now,” he said. “That’s what the tribunal and the assessment process and permitting process is all about. It’s not to wait and see what citizens feel and experts allege or argue. It’s about coming to a conclusion, making a case, and standing behind it. That’s what people expect from politicians. They don’t want them to wait and see where the wind is blowing. They want them to stand up and say, ‘Based on the evidence that I’ve seen, these are the conclusions that I’ve come to, and therefore my opinion is [this].

“But I didn’t get that sense. This is clearly an issue that the premier doesn’t want to touch while she’s in her re-creation mode going from talk show host to statesperson. It’s all well and good to stand beside the premier’s of Saskatchewan and Alberta and declare you’re a statesman, but statesmen make tough decisions and they stand by them. I haven’t seen that from Christy Clark.

“The issues are pretty clear,” he continued. “Northern Gateway has been on the table for some time now. We’re shaping our position. It’s pretty clear that many of the people in our party [aren’t interested]. Gary Coons representing Prince Rupert – not interested. The people that he represents – not interested. The Haida – not interested. And the confusion around where First Nations are, I think, only further muddies the water. And to have the premier then come up and say … it’s not for me to say what happens in British Columbia. Well, what are you the premier for? Perhaps you should go back to being a talk show host. In this business, you have to stand for something, and this is a very decisive issue for many people. There are those certainly that want to see this happen. And many, many more, based on my assessment that don’t. Our focus is on trying to continue to grow our natural gas sector, which is providing jobs, tax revenue, royalty revenue for the province of British Columbia. The pipeline moving Alberta commodity to market seems to me to be a lot of risk and not a lot of reward.”

I think we'll ultimately see the BCNDP take a stance against the pipeline, but I'm guessing they're biding their time to frame the message right. We may find that they put up a broad spectrum of arguments - not just environmental, but also labour, the interests of the First Nations and the local communities, and so forth. Perhaps they are looking for some prominent spokespeople to join them when they finally have a press conference about it. They know the stakes are high for the next election and they don't want to lose votes by putting out the message the wrong way.

That's because the government is in such deep, deep trouble with the public that one has to wonder whether it's reached the point of no return.

There comes a point in any government's existence where nothing it does - no matter how popular or sensible it may be --can save it from demise the next time it faces the electorate.

The B.C. Liberals have to be wondering whether they've reached that point. I've long held that after roughly 10 years in power, a stench of sorts begins to envelope a government and it can be very hard to get rid of it.

The latest Angus Reid poll shows the steep uphill struggle facing the B.C. Liberals and their leader. The poll gives the NDP a whopping 14 point lead (42 per cent to 28 per cent) over the B.C. Liberals.

But two other numbers are equally as alarming for the ruling party. The upstart B.C. Conservatives' support is pegged at 19 per cent, which is roughly where it was three months ago.

That means the B.C. Conservatives are not a flash-in-the-pan party. Its support appears to be solidifying, which is disastrous news for the B.C. Liberals.

The other number is the 22 per cent Premier Christy Clark polled when respondents were asked who would make the best premier. That's a bit behind NDP leader Adrian Dix's level of 26 per cent.

In the last three months, in fact, voters' positive impressions of Dix have improved by seven points while positive impressions of Clark have dropped three points.

Thus, the one argument Clark could use when defending her performance against critics with-in her party - that she was more popular than the B.C. Liberal party itself - seems to be disappearing.

Also troubling for the B.C. Liberals is that they are losing ground on credibility in running

the economy and fighting crime, two issues that should be their bread and butter.

Finally, the poll shows that just 60 per cent of those who voted for the B.C. Liberals in the last election would do so today. More than a quarter of those former Liberal voters now say they would vote for the B.C.

The new poll found gender played a role in the results. Among women, the NDP have a 26 point lead over the Liberals, taking 51 per cent of female voters, to the Liberals' 25 per cent.

Support for the two parties among B.C.'s male voters was nearly even.

While decided voters appear to be showing more support for the NDP, Clark continues to outpace Dix as the leader B.C. voters think would make the best premier moving forward, but that lead is shrinking.

It comes as no surprise to me, who has said from the beginning that Christy Clark did not have what it takes to lead a party, much less a province. If she were not premier, I would call her an airhead.

It's interesting to note that only one person in her caucus supported her leadership bid, and he had to be shuffled into cabinet obscurity after screwing up his first minister's post. This is an important point because under the British system, when a prime minister goes, the caucus declares who the successor will be until the next party convention. A party-wide vote, democratic though it may be, is a popularity contest, while the caucus votes the most competent successor which they are best qualified to determine. At the very least, before a leadership convention, the caucus ought to be polled and the poll made public. As expected, Premier Clark refuses to face issues by changing the subject when she is asked tough questions to her amazing plan to make B.C. the most this or that, blah, blah, blah.